By Boakye Stephen, Kumasi, Ghana | Reporting for Ghanaian News, Canada | May 6, 2026
Public health expert and Democracy and Development Fellow at CDD-Ghana, Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, has backed the Health Minister’s decision to implement recommendations from the Charles Amissah investigative report, arguing that the focus must go beyond punishment to deeper institutional reform.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Mr Asiedu stated that the tragedy exposed not only technical failures within the healthcare system but also troubling attitudinal problems among some health workers.
“For me, I see the ministerial directive not only as a means to punish, but a means to understand the attitudinal problems there that cause these things to happen,” he said.
He added:
“Because without understanding the attitudinal problems there in, it will be very difficult to fix the people problem as well.”
According to him, the committee’s findings revealed a combination of systemic breakdowns, technical weaknesses, and human failures that contributed to the avoidable death.
Mr Asiedu emphasized that emergency healthcare begins long before a patient arrives at a hospital.
“When you have an emergency, the journey starts from the first person who comes across you,” he explained.
His comments come amid growing public scrutiny over Ghana’s emergency healthcare response systems following the release of findings by the Akosa Committee.
The Health Ministry has already directed disciplinary processes against several health professionals named in the report.
COMMENTARY | BOAKYE STEPHEN
This may be one of the most important observations in the entire national discussion.
Systems do fail. But sometimes systems fail because attitudes fail first.
Technology alone cannot save lives where urgency is absent. Buildings alone cannot produce compassion. Policies alone cannot create responsibility.
Healthcare reform must therefore become both structural and moral.
Because if the culture inside the system remains unchanged, new reforms may only decorate old problems.
